The nuncio on 'foreign bishops

PARMA, Ohio — Foreign bishops named to the U.S. church can help keep the missionary spirit alive, said the pope’s representative in the United States.
In an interview with Horizons following the July 21 welcome liturgy for Bishop Milan Lach, a native of Slovakia, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the United States, commented on the contribution European bishops can make to the U.S. church.
“It’s always good to have people coming from a different experience. The diversity, and especially these people who are being sent, have been chosen for their capacity to (adapt) from one country to the other but also for their abilities,” said the French archbishop.
“It’s also a sign, especially today, where there is a tendency to build some walls… (that) the church is always open. And I think it is a challenge to the church to remain what it has always been — universal,” he continued.
He said he thinks bishops from other countries “are also being sent to help us not to lose the missionary dimension, because a church that is not missionary is not the church.”
Archbishop Pierre said when a bishop is welcomed into a diocese, it is always “a new beginning for the church.”
“With new beginnings, of course, there is continuity, but there is also a renewal,” he said.
In attending some 30 welcome liturgies this past year, he said, “I always feel a kind of joy because the bishop is not just administrative. (He) is the father of the people... the representative of Christ. He’s being sent by the Holy Father to lead the people of God and people feel that. A church without a leader or a bishop is not a real church.”